Insignificant
by mai-sama666
Summary: An uplifting story about valuing the ones around you. Mitsui, Rukawa, and two not-so-OC characters. Read to find out who.


The air around today was not blowing with gaiety. I was walking with my regular finesse, my black hair displaying the sun's sheen. But everything other than my usual nonchalance seemed all in shackles.  
  
I am an orphan, I used to roam the streets, defending myself against the harsh world. For all my life, I have transfered from house to house, seeking refuge in the hand of the more fortunate, hoping for acceptance...because my parents left me when I was so young. I was garbage - an unwanted child thrown away. I'm talking about my depressing past, although it's not a petition for pity. You see, I'm fulfilled and satisfied with the freedom I had, nonetheless. And I have the guts right now to say that my will is stronger than anyone else's in the world.  
  
Yesterday, I was liesurely walking to my friend's house which was around one kilometer from the park. But then again, it was just half that distance across the walls of others' houses and closed gates... I was convinced not to take the dirty way around, since there IS no hurry and I wanted to keep clean.  
  
Then there was this hush that filled the park. An uncomfortable hush that beckons the beginning of a storm.  
  
A man with his black, raven hair spewn across his eyes was walking home with a blank look on his face, until he saw me. Oh, I've seen him before, on a bike, that is. On my weighing scale, he's about 15-17 years, 6 feet, and a hundred million yen. He called me, but he himself was carrying that odd unease. An aura of accident that blended with the storm-set surroundings. Turning my head snappily to the side, I walked away to proceed to my friend's house.  
  
Oh, my friend. She was also an orphan, albeit a luckier one. She's young, and it shows through the smooth down of her hair, her face unfilled with the hardships that I had to go through. Her name is Sa-chan, and after quite a while, she had come to consider me as her older sister. How sweet, I thought. The first family I ever had.  
  
Sa-chan was taken from lowly life by a man whose face she can't remember. All she knows is that, that man is a good friend of her adoptor's. The life she grew up in, unlike me, was inside a house, with two parents. They had one spoiled child, who was pretty fond of her, despite the fact that his parent's attention would be deviated once more... Her oni-chan was pretty sweet. Her parents would regulary tell her things that were insignificant to her: That Hisashi-kun was a former gang member and all... and since they never were able to handle his fits of anger, they never bothered to talk him out of it.  
  
But Sa-chan never saw that in her Mitchy-nichan. He was a nurturing and handsome young man whom she never failed to admire. Well, gone was the messy growth on his head, and contrary to her foster parents' narrations, he never came home with a single bruise ever. Her ni-chan was really sweet, and hell I envy it. One day when I was in their house, I saw her ni-chan immediately call her the moment he arrived from school, and when she came, she was given something I couldn't see because I was hiding behind the room divider. Funny, when he caught sight of me, well, he was surprised, alright, but he didn't scold me or anything. In fact, he was elated to see that her sister has made friends with someone...  
  
...how I wished I lived in a home like this.  
  
So, tum-de-dum, I went to Sa-chan's house. I knew by now that her parents were still at work, and that her ni-chan hasn't arrived yet from that public government school he studied in, so I made my way into the house up the fence, up the gates, into the window. But damn, where was my little sister?  
  
There, sprawled on the ground.  
  
I bit her on the neck and brought her out of the house through window, gates, fence, looking desperately for Hisashi-kun. Where? Please! Not now! Please, I need someone to help Sa-chan!  
  
Then there. I caught the sight of a man in his blue trousers and white shirt coming in through the street corner. Hisashi-kun! He was wearing a down-trodden look on his face, like someone just died... I went near him, and when he was close enough to see me, his eyes became as wide as saucers and knelt down, picked Sa-chan up, asking me what happened.  
  
Hisashi-kun was muttering heavily across his breath as he ran forcefully across the streets, through the green lights, through men clad in blue uniforms negotiating with men in cars (to which he hollered 'Emergency!' when they tried to stop him). I was almost ran over as I followed suit.  
  
He was still breathing heavily with worry as he came inside this small building, where he was met with an old man with an odd device hanging around his neck.  
  
i"Please help her..."/i Hisashi-kun was shouting his plea, i"I don't know what happened! She's not responding like she used to!"/i  
  
Well, the old man told him to calm down...Calm down my @ss, I thought. How could you calm down when...someone's dying?  
  
Of course she's not dying...my only family...  
  
While I was in the middle of my thoughts, a pair of strong hands grabbed me. I struggled a little before I saw it was Hisashi-kun. Goodness, we must be thinking of the same thing.  
  
i"First, Anzai-sensei, and then...You know, Nanashi*, why does it happen so that it's only when someone is lost that you learn to value her importance? It should never be the case...Sa-chan brought me happiness, brought me something to look forward to when I arrived everyday from practice, tired and utterly exhausted... Kogure was right that she'd ease my tension..."/i  
  
He sat on the bench and situated me on his lap, and continued, i"...but I guess she's more than that, you know...I guess she did make her way to my heart... "/i He stared blankly at the wall.  
  
I purred my silent agreement. But no one knows how terrible I felt that day...  
  
Hisashi-kun left the door ajar today, maybe he was anticipating my arrival, but I took the path through the window nonetheless. But everything was amiss, now that Sa-chan wouldn't come to greet me as I jumped from the window sill. I went beside her sleeping basket and stared at the platter of milk on the floor, and then at the spot where I carried her away when I saw her lifeless body.  
  
I fell asleep on the spot beside Sa-chan's basket and dreamt...  
  
ithat my little sister was still beside me.../i  
  
---OWARI---  
  
A/N: Well, thank you for reading, I guess. This is a story I cooped out from nothingness, as I was thinking of the many similarities between Mitsui and Rukawa. There's the fact that they were both team captains in their former school, they had poor stamina, etc. And that they were seen in the anime both with cats. My favorite animals.  
  
* Nanashi means "no name". And in this part of the story, the Shohoku team doesn't know yet if Anzai-sensei is ok or not. 


End file.
